Yorkshire life sciences firm launches £80m float ahead of big expansion

The York-based life sciences firm will have an initial market capitalisation of £80m and is raising £11m, backed by local investors, with many of its new employees coming from the local area.

The firm currently employs 40 people and it has plans to take on another 20 people over the next two years.

The company said it is proud of its base in York and it employs local scientists and graduates from York University.

Arron Tolley, chief executive at Aptamer Group, said: “York University and by extension, York Science Park, has been incredibly important to us because of the high quality of the students and the graduates that we get from York University.

"We have quite a lot of ex-York University graduates and masters students that we take on and train.

"Also York Science Park has been incredibly helpful to us over the years and they have helped us grow the business. They've given us access to the facilities and the managed services they have here."

Aptamer has now outgrown the space it has at York Science Park and is looking for its own premises in York.

"We will be moving to new premises in York - that's part of the use of funds," said Mr Tolley.

"We will definitely stay in York. We all love York and living in York and working in York.

"It's a good place to recruit talent because people are happy to relocate to live in York, given it's been voted the best place to live in the country for the past five years."

Aptamer has played a leading role in Covid-19 testing by working on the joint effort to test sewage.

It has worked on detection services that provide immediate alerts to authorities to contain Covid-19 hotspots. Contamination detection in wastewater is becoming an increasingly important tool in the fight against the disease.

"We've developed molecular binders that recognise the Covid spike protein in wastewater. We are looking to license those molecules in different formats," said Mr Tolley.

Aptamer said it solves intractable problems for biotech and big pharma firms by developing molecular binders called aptamers, as an alternative to antibodies which fail to perform 50 to 60 per cent of the time.

Aptamer operates across three life science sectors: custom services (research and bioprocessing tools), diagnostics and therapeutics.

The group has a blue-chip customer base and has supplied or collaborated with 75 per cent of the global top 20 pharmaceutical companies. It has seen organic revenue growth of 400 per cent over the past four years, with upfront deal values ranging from £50,000 to £3.8m.

The firm said that aptamers are a disruptive technology in the well established global antibody market, which is worth over £110bn a year and is expected to reach £188bn by 2026.

The group said that the aptamer market is set to expand rapidly over the next five to 10 years into a multi-billion dollar worldwide market and is forecast to grow at 18 to 28 per cent each year.

Mr Tolley said: “Today is an important milestone for Aptamer and I am delighted that the group has commenced trading on AIM.

"This listing marks an important step in our journey as we solidify our position as the leading provider of aptamer discovery and selection services and the development of aptamer-based reagents.

"I would like to thank our new and existing shareholders for their support and our hard working and dedicated staff and customers for helping build Aptamer Group into the business it is today. I look forward to providing updates on our progress in the months and years ahead.”

Liberum is acting as sole bookrunner and broker and Spark Advisory Partners is acting as nominated adviser in relation to the placing and admission.